The show — a collaborative brainchild of artists from the Boulder-based theater troupe The Catamounts and the Denver-based Control Group Productions dance troupe — won't be confined to the set limits of a proscenium stage. Instead, this drama, based on the ancient Greek myth of Persephone and the return of spring, will unfold in the open-air setting of the hills, paths and trees below the Flatirons of south Boulder. For each performance, audience groups of around 50 will take a bus ride into the Boulder back country, break up into groups, walk along a trail and encounter different scenes realized by a cadre of 10 actors.

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This dynamic may sound more like a grade-school field trip than a traditional theater outing, and that's no accident. According to organizers, "Rausch" was created with immersion in mind. Directors and writers Amanda Berg Wilson and Patrick Mueller, who've racked up a resume staging successful interactive theater productions at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, wanted to bring that same irreverence and immersion to Boulder.

"It's a renovation of how we experience theater," said Mueller, the artistic director of Control Group Productions. "Instead of putting the audience in the dark half of the room and having them simply receive the art, it's happening all around them. They're an active agent moving through it."

That has meant reimagining the fundamentals of what a theatrical production can be. Traditional set pieces, lighting schemes and sound cues are out the window, as is the sense of a single narrative progression. Different groups of the audience will witness different scenes played out at different times; the story of "Rausch" is less a linear journey through time than an amalgamation of scenes that are assembled by each audience member.

"Every audience member will take in the narrative in a different order," Mueller said, adding that scenes will take place along the trail and on fixed sites across about two acres. "'Rausch' is a German word that means 'intoxication' and 'loss of self.' Starting with the bus ride, we want to displace people, to have them in an experience when they're not in control."

Location will remain secret

In effectively disarming the audience, the creators of "Rausch" are hoping to even more effectively convey themes tied to the natural world, issues broached in the myth of Persephone. In the ancient world, the goddess was seen as the harbinger of spring and renewal; the annual cycle of rebirth and renewal had roots in Persephone's voyage to the underworld. Yearly rites rooted in the promise of spring were intimately tied to Persephone's voyage to hell and back again.

According to Amanda Berg Wilson, artistic director of The Catamounts, the myth offered compelling bridges to modern questions of nature, climate and resources. In a steadily warming world when the exact timing of spring has become less certain, "Rausch" seeks to address fundamental questions about human beings' role in our natural world.

"Spring comes, but sometimes it comes in February; sometimes things bloom when they're not supposed to," said Wilson, who wrote the final version of "Rausch" using input from Mueller and other Catamounts and Control Group troupe members. "Things are different now. We couldn't be outside and talk about the cycles of nature without talking about how humans messed them up."

In writing and staging "Rausch," Wilson and Mueller drew from experience gleaned as cast members of "Sweet & Lucky" and production heads of "The Wild Party" at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts Off/Center series, both of which experimented with the role of the audience.

"Rausch" pushes that element to a different level, Wilson said, forgoing the confines of a physical building entirely and opting for an outdoor setting, the specific coordinates of which will remain a secret until the launch of the show. Wilson noted that the experience has pushed her own approach as an artist to a different level, as she's had to plan for issues not typically addressed by a director.

"We're outside. We're dealing with the elements. Going into these immersive realms, not only am I thinking about the normal directorial things, but I'm also thinking about what the audience is doing, how they're engaged, how they're being separated at various points, how they're absorbing the themes in different orders," Wilson said. "It's retraining my brain to have to think like I have eyes in the back of my head."

But both Wilson and Mueller said this extra planning will pay off for audience members looking for a new kind of theater experience. Crowds will report to the Wild Woods Brewery in south Boulder, drink a complimentary beer and board a bus bound for an undisclosed location. When they come back, they'll be treated to a second beer and hopefully have a different perspective on the show's themes and, more fundamentally, the possibilities of the stage.

"Let's make a case for the necessity of theater in the cultural ecology by showing how three-dimensional it is, in some ways how analog and tactile it is," Wilson said. "It's a really Colorado kind of immersive experience. Those people who don't love the idea of sitting in a dark theater would really dig this."

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